Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company in 1904 and introduced the Model T in October 1908, revolutionizing the automotive industry forever. While the success of the Model T became part of American popular culture, one of Ford's most innovative designs remained obscure.

Ford recognized early the possible long-term environmental damage from mass-produced cars and the prospect of raw-material shortages. As a farmer, he understood hemp's unique potential and believed switching to plant-based vehicles could prevent both problems. Henry Ford also cared deeply about agriculture and planned to help farmers badly hurt by the Great Depression by making cars from their crops.

In 1941, shortly after introducing the first Ford V8, Henry Ford built a car made almost entirely from plant-based plastic and designed to run on hemp oil fuel. Behind this car, with its potential to radically change the environment, were 29 young scientists and 12 years of hard work.

On August 13, 1941, more than 10,000 people gathered outside Ford Motor Company's headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, to see this advanced car.

Its panels combined cellulose from wheat straw, flax, spruce pulp, hemp and sisal with resin as a binder, molded under 1,500 psi of hydraulic pressure. The only steel in the body was the tubular steel chassis, to which 14 plastic panels were attached. The resulting body was ten times stronger than steel. The car ran on ethanol made from hemp and other agricultural waste. The prototype was therefore 1,000 pounds lighter, safer and cheaper than conventional steel cars.

Why did Ford's hemp car never enter mass production?

Several theories explain why this technologically advanced car never reached mass production. The first concerns America's shift toward plastic products from September 1940 to supply metal raw materials to the Allies before entering World War II. Other manufacturers, like Ford, wanted to reduce metal dependence. Using plastic in cars could help address the national shortage. But after the United States entered the war, manufacturers began making military vehicles, bringing passenger-car production almost to a halt. Ford's one-off prototype was reportedly destroyed by its creator, Eugene Turenne Gregorie, and the project was entirely shelved after the war.

Another unconfirmed theory is that formaldehyde-containing resin used in the panels smelled so bad, and the smell seemed so permanent, that mass production was canceled. Although not fully verified, this explanation has entered the historical account as a possible reason.

The third, and probably strongest, theory concerns cannabis prohibition in the United States. Growing cannabis was banned in 1937 because of the psychoactive effects of THC, one of its best-known cannabinoids. In reality, powerful executives and lawless representatives of the oil, plastic and paper industries played major roles behind these bans.

Henry Ford, himself a hemp-field owner, continued growing hemp illegally for a few years afterward, but eventually decided the automotive project could not be sustained under current laws and canceled it.

In a 1925 statement to the New York Times, Henry Ford said:

“The fuel of the future will come from fruit like that sumac by the roadside, from apples, weeds and sawdust. There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented. There is enough alcohol in the yield of one acre of potatoes to run the machinery needed to cultivate the fields for a hundred years.”

Click to read our detailed article on the process of cannabis prohibition!